Falcon 4.0: Allied Force – Part 4 Page 8

By SimHQ on July 8, 2005 in _air5, hide

Conclusion

F4:AF multiplayer is simply a blast. The fact that there is so much going on around you (should you chose the campaign missions) really adds to the immersion. As you fly along with your human wingman you can share the experience and marvel at the sights and sounds of the war unfolding all over the theater. Many times while we were flying Doug would point out a ground skirmish going on over there, or another flight pounding a naval unit there. Flying with a partner also immensely adds to your situational awareness. With another airplane sweeping the skies for threats you have protection on your flanks or top cover during your strike.

Initial connectivity issues will be the hardest pill to swallow with F4:AF. A modernized (read: simplified) system of hooking up would be widely heralded for the less technically proficient among us. That said, following the step-by-step instructions provided for your router should lead to a relatively quick and painless multiplayer connection. Once I learned how to do it, I could repeat it in 30 seconds with no problems. After the connectivity issue is resolved you will marvel at how stable F4:AF is during multiplayer flying. I believe only once in all our testing did any of our testers suffer a lockup and I believe it occurred at the mission debrief screen, not during flight. There can be occasional warping, but I found it to be extremely rare. We were not able to test massively multiplayer campaign stability, so we can’t comment on how stable that configuration is.

We were able to fly multiple, long multiplayer co-op missions in the “Powderkeg” campaign without CTDs or hangs. That is a Falcon 4 miracle in itself.

We’re hoping that Hyperlobby will pick up the ball and arrange for F4:AF. Jiri does support SP3, so there is already support for the game. Seems there shouldn’t be much effort needed to bring F4:AF into the next version. This would be beneficial in (re)introducing players to the multiplayer aspect of the game.

The amazing part is that with the exception of getting your router set up, this all occurred in the straight out of the box version of F4:AF. Lead Pursuit did an admirable job updating what was written in a time when dial-up was the predominant method of connecting online and broadband was mostly a dream. Considering this, it’s amazing it works at all, let alone works with this degree of stability. We believe Lead Pursuit really did an exceptional job on the multiplayer side of the simulation and we look forward to seeing more improvements and additional features in the future.

We want your Feedback. Please let us know what you thought of this article here.

What’s been your experience so far with Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces multiplayer?
Vote in our Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Multiplayer Poll here.

Read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of our Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Review.

Read our Interview with Lead Pursuit’s Executive Producer, Joel Bierling here.

System Specs – “WKLINK”